In this episode of Battlegrounds, H.R. McMaster and David Schwendiman discuss the evolution of human rights law, international criminal justice, investigations and prosecutions, and its implications for prosecuting war crimes in Ukraine. 

H.R. McMaster in conversation with David Schwendiman on Wednesday, June 8, 2022 at 9:00am PT.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

David Schwendiman served for over twenty-five years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Utah. He was the Chief Prosecutor of the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office in The Hague from 2016 to 2018 and previously oversaw investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo in 1998, 1999 and 2000 as the Lead Prosecutor of the EU’s Special Investigative Task Force (SITF). Schwendiman investigated and prosecuted atrocities committed during the war in the Former Yugoslavia as an international prosecutor in the Special Department for War Crimes of the State Prosecutor’s Office in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He also served as the U.S. Justice Attaché in Kabul, Afghanistan from 2010 through 2013 and spent 2014 as the Assistant Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) and Director of Forward Operations for SIGAR.  He is now an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law.

H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and the Japan Chair at the Hudson Institute.  He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.  He was the 26th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. Upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1984, McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a Lieutenant General in June 2018.